Latest news with #Oskar
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Vibrant' Metrolink mural provides ‘much-improved gateway' to town
A new piece of public art is brightening up the approach to a tram stop. 'On Our Way' was produced by artists Tracey Cartledge and Oskar and co-created with members of the nearby Creative Living Centre (CLC), who help people recover from mental illness. CLC members took part in artist-led workshops with Tracey to create individual mosaic pieces that are incorporated into the design and some of them painted elements of the mural with Oskar. CLC said the result is a 'dynamic and inclusive artwork that reflects the spirit of the community and provides an improved gateway to the tram stop and Prestwich'. READ MORE: LIVE Air ambulance lands in Piccadilly Gardens after knife attack - latest updates READ MORE: They were wrongly chased for money by the DWP and now they're dead Tracey said 'It has been a real pleasure to be part of this project. 'Collaborating with Oskar to plan, design and execute the installation was a new, interesting and very positive experience for both of us. 'I enjoyed facilitating the afternoon mosaic session at the wonderful Creative Living Centre. 'The staff were absolutely brilliant and the participants were completely engaged and very capably produced a set of beautiful mosaic details to enhance the mural.' The project was also supported by Prestwich Arts Festival, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Keolis Amey Metrolink (KAM). Jane Thomson, chair of Prestwich Arts Festival said: 'This is the fourth mural that Prestwich Arts Festival have brought to the town to contribute to its placemaking. 'We're especially delighted that this latest work includes contributions from local people thanks to the team and members of CLC. 'It is a great showcase of the value of arts to wellbeing and mental health.' Ian Davies, TfGM's network director Metrolink, said: 'This new mural at Prestwich tram stop is very much in the spirit of the Bee Network, with its strong focus on community and inclusion. 'We're proud to have teamed up to deliver this vibrant and much-improved gateway to the stop. 'Our public transport network should be attractive, safe and welcoming to everyone – and what better way to achieve that than involving local people in a project that benefits both themselves and their community.' This year's Prestwich Arts Festival will run September 26-28.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: The culture of shhh — what my Nazi legacy taught me about silence
Oskar Jakob, 94, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who once assembled V-1 flying bombs in a subterranean concentration camp, and I'm the granddaughter of the engineer who developed those secret Nazi super weapons. Despite or perhaps because of our respective histories, we've worked to become friends. And while I've known Oskar for a few years, it's only recently, as neo-Nazis flew swastika flags in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, that I felt the need to use my own ancestry to fight this brand of hate. The white supremacist demonstrations in Ohio weren't one-offs. Last fall, another black-clad group, their faces covered, did the same just three miles from Oskar's St. Louis home. 'America for the White Man,' declared the banner they hung from an overpass on Interstate 64. Oskar's son snapped a picture as he drove by and sent it to me along with three angry-face emojis. These incidents made me angry too, but also profoundly uncomfortable. What is the proper response when thugs perpetuate the hateful rhetoric of a political party to which your grandfather once belonged? And what could be more uncomfortable than the weight of the history between Oskar and me? Read more: Contributor: Putin's diaspora will echo 1939's, but going in the opposite direction In 1945, after 40 of Oskar Jakob's family members died at Auschwitz, the SS imprisoned him at the Mittelbau-Dora camp in Nordhausen, Germany. Deep in the tunnels of this former gypsum mine, 14-year-old Oskar was forced to rivet sheet metal used to make Vergeltungswaffe Einz: Vengeance Weapon #1. This was the world's first cruise missile and my grandfather Robert Lusser headed the Luftwaffe project to create it. I met Oskar eight decades later when I flew to St. Louis to interview him for a podcast I host about my German history. I'd been wanting to speak with a survivor for years, but it wasn't easy to connect because each Holocaust group I asked for help declined. Putting a relative of the Nazi engineer who created weapons of mass destruction in touch with a slave laborer who assembled them in conditions so horrific that 20,000 prisoners died was a nonstarter. But finally, I found Oskar, and on a warm spring afternoon, I found myself sitting in his neat dining room, listening to him tell of a night when guards caught a group of prisoners resting. 'They hung 70 people simultaneously, and we were forced to march by the dead bodies and everybody had to punch them with their fist,' he said. I stared out at the bright, Midwestern afternoon, longing to feel the sun on my face. Read more: After 80 years, not many Auschwitz survivors are left. One man makes telling the stories his mission 'I feel very much like I want to tell you that I'm so sorry,' I said instead, not exactly sure on whose behalf I was apologizing. My own? My family's? All of humanity? 'I appreciate that,' Oskar said, his face folded neatly, like an old map. 'Up 'til today I have never heard from a German that they are sorry for what I went through.' Technically, I'm not German. My grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1948, recruited to build bombs for America. I had ignored my controversial German legacy for most of my life. After all, no one really wants to ask the question: Was Grandpa an ideological Nazi? Our family lore emphasized the genius engineer theme and disregarded the fact that Robert Lusser joined the Nazi party in 1937 to advance his career. Read more: Auschwitz was liberated 80 years ago. The spotlight is on survivors as their numbers dwindle A decade later, the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA, cleared my grandfather of any crimes, in part because it benefited America's Cold War cause to have him on our weapons team. Investigators categorized him as Mitläufer — a 'fellow traveler' — someone who benefited from Hitler's regime while not actively participating in its atrocities. My grandfather stood silent in the face of evil because that was the beneficial, easier choice. Just as many Germans ignored the rise of National Socialism in the 1920s and '30s, too many Americans are ignoring what's happening here a century later. "Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. rose 140% from 2022 to 2023,' Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism told me. 'We documented over 10,000 incidents between the Oct. 7th, 2023, attack on Israel and its anniversary in 2024.' Read more: Contributor: As a Holocaust survivor, the most important thing I can do is share my story After wrestling with generational guilt, which feels like a curse handed down through time, and questioning my responsibility as an American personally connected to Nazi history, I made a decision. When swastika flags fly in America and white supremacists shout 'Heil Hitler!' and racial slurs, when a presidential surrogate offers a Nazi-style salute and makes common cause with Germany's neo-Nazi-adjacent political party, the AfD, I will not be a fellow traveler. Or a bystander. My first social media post using my family history as a cautionary tale was viewed almost 2 million times and drew thousands of comments, some full of hate and ridicule. It makes me anxious to put myself in the public eye, but it's no underground death camp, without sunlight, escape or hope. When Oskar and I spoke last May at the Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum in St. Louis, it was standing room only. 'Suzanne Rico is a descendant of a Nazi engineer,' said the master of ceremonies. Oskar nodded his white-haired head as 300 people waited to hear what I had to say. I said that history's most terrifying ghosts are coming back to life. If you don't believe me, look closely at photos taken on an Ohio street or a Missouri interstate. Pay attention to the covered faces of cowards trying to intimidate through fear. And then ask yourself: What uncomfortable legacy might we leave our children and grandchildren if we stay silent this time around? Suzanne Rico is an award-winning television and print journalist. She hosts the podcast "The Man Who Calculated Death." @suzannerico on all platforms If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
The culture of shhh — what my Nazi legacy taught me about silence
Oskar Jakob, 94, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who once assembled V-1 flying bombs in a subterranean concentration camp, and I'm the granddaughter of the engineer who developed those secret Nazi super weapons. Despite or perhaps because of our respective histories, we've worked to become friends. And while I've known Oskar for a few years, it's only recently, as neo-Nazis flew swastika flags in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, that I felt the need to use my own ancestry to fight this brand of hate. The white supremacist demonstrations in Ohio weren't one-offs. Last fall, another black-clad group, their faces covered, did the same just three miles from Oskar's St. Louis home. 'America for the White Man,' declared the banner they hung from an overpass on Interstate 64. Oskar's son snapped a picture as he drove by and sent it to me along with three angry-face emojis. These incidents made me angry too, but also profoundly uncomfortable. What is the proper response when thugs perpetuate the hateful rhetoric of a political party to which your grandfather once belonged? And what could be more uncomfortable than the weight of the history between Oskar and me? In 1945, after 40 of Oskar Jakob's family members died at Auschwitz, the SS imprisoned him at the Mittelbau-Dora camp in Nordhausen, Germany. Deep in the tunnels of this former gypsum mine, 14-year-old Oskar was forced to rivet sheet metal used to make Vergeltungswaffe Einz: Vengeance Weapon #1. This was the world's first cruise missile and my grandfather Robert Lusser headed the Luftwaffe project to create it. I met Oskar eight decades later when I flew to St. Louis to interview him for a podcast I host about my German history. I'd been wanting to speak with a survivor for years, but it wasn't easy to connect because each Holocaust group I asked for help declined. Putting a relative of the Nazi engineer who created weapons of mass destruction in touch with a slave laborer who assembled them in conditions so horrific that 20,000 prisoners died was a nonstarter. But finally, I found Oskar, and on a warm spring afternoon, I found myself sitting in his neat dining room, listening to him tell of a night when guards caught a group of prisoners resting. 'They hung 70 people simultaneously, and we were forced to march by the dead bodies and everybody had to punch them with their fist,' he said. I stared out at the bright, Midwestern afternoon, longing to feel the sun on my face. 'I feel very much like I want to tell you that I'm so sorry,' I said instead, not exactly sure on whose behalf I was apologizing. My own? My family's? All of humanity? 'I appreciate that,' Oskar said, his face folded neatly, like an old map. 'Up 'til today I have never heard from a German that they are sorry for what I went through.' Technically, I'm not German. My grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1948, recruited to build bombs for America. I had ignored my controversial German legacy for most of my life. After all, no one really wants to ask the question: Was Grandpa an ideological Nazi? Our family lore emphasized the genius engineer theme and disregarded the fact that Robert Lusser joined the Nazi party in 1937 to advance his career. A decade later, the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA, cleared my grandfather of any crimes, in part because it benefited America's Cold War cause to have him on our weapons team. Investigators categorized him as Mitläufer — a 'fellow traveler' — someone who benefited from Hitler's regime while not actively participating in its atrocities. My grandfather stood silent in the face of evil because that was the beneficial, easier choice. Just as many Germans ignored the rise of National Socialism in the 1920s and '30s, too many Americans are ignoring what's happening here a century later. 'Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. rose 140% from 2022 to 2023,' Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism told me. 'We documented over 10,000 incidents between the Oct. 7th, 2023, attack on Israel and its anniversary in 2024.' After wrestling with generational guilt, which feels like a curse handed down through time, and questioning my responsibility as an American personally connected to Nazi history, I made a decision. When swastika flags fly in America and white supremacists shout 'Heil Hitler!' and racial slurs, when a presidential surrogate offers a Nazi-style salute and makes common cause with Germany's neo-Nazi-adjacent political party, the AfD, I will not be a fellow traveler. Or a bystander. My first social media post using my family history as a cautionary tale was viewed almost 2 million times and drew thousands of comments, some full of hate and ridicule. It makes me anxious to put myself in the public eye, but it's no underground death camp, without sunlight, escape or hope. When Oskar and I spoke last May at the Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum in St. Louis, it was standing room only. 'Suzanne Rico is a descendant of a Nazi engineer,' said the master of ceremonies. Oskar nodded his white-haired head as 300 people waited to hear what I had to say. I said that history's most terrifying ghosts are coming back to life. If you don't believe me, look closely at photos taken on an Ohio street or a Missouri interstate. Pay attention to the covered faces of cowards trying to intimidate through fear. And then ask yourself: What uncomfortable legacy might we leave our children and grandchildren if we stay silent this time around? Suzanne Rico is an award-winning television and print journalist. She hosts the podcast 'The Man Who Calculated Death.' @suzannerico on all platforms
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dillard's Introduces Kristin Ellen Hockman for Edgehill
A Limited-Edition Capsule Collection for Children The Margaret Dress Augie Short Set Elin Pant Set Oskar Short Set Josephine Shoe The Kristin Ellen Hockman X Edgehill Collection LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dillard's, Inc. ('Dillard's') (NYSE: DDS) is pleased to announce Kristin Ellen Hockman for Edgehill, launching on at 10.00 a.m. Central today as well as in stores nationwide. Kristin Ellen Hockman, a mother, interior designer and fashion tastemaker, has designed this limited-edition capsule collection for Edgehill, the Company's elevated and exclusive line of children's apparel and accessories. Kristin Ellen Hockman shares, 'Working on this collection the past year has been the biggest dream come true, and I am so excited to share it with you! As an interior designer, It was very important to me that the fabrics and colors in this collection feel very harmonious and blend seamlessly together. I thought to myself, 'How will these pieces look together in family photos? How can I best pair the boys' stripes with the girls' floral print? What will look beautiful together and complement each other?' So alas, this beautiful palette was born. My hope is that you find these pieces perfect for casual spring days, perfect for Easter Sunday, perfect for any occasion.' Dillard's Vice-President of Merchandising Alexandra Dillard Lucie adds, 'We are thrilled to launch this collaboration with Kristin, who is one of the most talented designers we've had the pleasure to work with. Drawing upon her love of interior design and her own, exceptional, personal style, this collection features a magnificent mix of heirloom pieces that are certain to become favorites this spring for many families. Today, we are tremendously proud to present Kristin Ellen Hockman for Edgehill.' Kristin Ellen Hockman for Edgehill features exclusive selections of infants and children's apparel with coordinating footwear and accessories. Apparel sizes range from newborn to 6x (girls) and 7 (boys). Footwear sizes range from Infant 5 to Youth 1. The line also features a coordinating quilt, two plush ducks, a weekender bag and a storage trunk. About Kristin Ellen HockmanKristin Ellen Hockman is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is a mother, interior designer, children's book author and illustrator, and the founder of her eponymous design studio, established in 2020. Constantly influenced by traditional design paired with Scandinavian sensibility, she draws deep inspiration from the intersection of interior design, fashion, and art. About the Edgehill CollectionAvailable exclusively at Dillard's and rooted in timeless tradition, the Edgehill Collection represents a refined sense of Southern style and an elevated taste, providing upscale pieces for boys and girls in preemie, newborn, infant, and toddler sizes. The line's greatest objective is to create unique items to inspire memorable moments for Dillard's clients and their families. See the full collection online at CONTACT:Dillard's, J. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at in to access your portfolio
